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D16.8   HOCKING,  William. 

H62^8     On  the  law  of  history. 


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UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA    PUBLICATIONS 

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September  17,  1909 


Vol.  2,  No.  3,  pp.  45-65 


ON  THE   LAW  OF  HISTORY 


WILLIAM  ERNEST  HOCKING 

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UNIVERSITY    OF    CALIFORNIA    PUBLICATIONS 

IN 

PHILOSOPHY 

Vol.  2,  No.  3,  pp.  45-65  September  17,  1909 


ON  THE  LAW  OF  HISTORY. 


WILLIAM   ERNEST   HOCKING. 


The  empirical  conscience  of  our  time,  in  setting  a  high  stand- 
ard of  objectivity  for  historical  labors,  lays  a  tax  heavier  than 
ever  upon  the  pretence  to  grasp  a  definite  law  pervading  the  suc- 
cession of  changes  in  human  society.  The  motives  which  in 
Hegel's  time  led  to  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  any  such  law 
have  been  in  some  measure  set  aside  and  exchanged  for  others. 
It  is  no  longer  the  freedom  of  the  human  will  that  is  commonly 
felt  to  shut  out  the  possibility  of  order  in  history,  but  rather  the 
complexity  of  human  affairs.  We  are  not  now  held  off  from 
a  speculative  study  of  history  by  a  conviction  that  unfore- 
seeable intrusions  of  Providence  disturb  the  processes  of  or- 
(  derly  development  among  us,  but  rather  by  a  belief  that  the 
mental  phenomena  of  the  world  are  more  deeply  under  control 
of  the  physical  than  was  formerly  thought.  The  regularities  of 
the  world,  it  is  believed,  lie  deeper  than  the  surface  of  historical 
experience.  Among  ultimate  physical  units,  order  is  perfect; 
as  we  deal  with  groupings  of  these  units,  laws  become  more  con- 
ditional and  limited  in  scope,  until  in  the  vastly  compound  region 
of  "  epiphenomena "  they  cease  to  have  even  a  statistical  exist- 
ence. This  extreme  fruit  of  the  naturalistic  temper  has  a  certain 
logical  coherence  to  recommend  it.  It  does  not  discountenance 
the  attempt  to  reach  empirical  generalizations  as  to  tendencies  in 
human  affairs,  of  greater  or  lesser  scope ;  but  it  guards  even  the 
most  timorous  of  these  generalizations  with  an  escort  of  condi- 
tional clauses.  It  will  not  say  that  "the  law  of  political  change 
involves  a  continual  increase  of  political  liberty ; ' '  but  it  will  say, 


46       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

with  reservations,  that  "the  trend  of  modern  European  history- 
has  been,  until  recently,  in  the  direction  of  enlarging  the  political 
privileges  of  the  masses. ' ' 

It  cannot,  indeed,  be  said  that  the  naturalistic  point  of  view 
rigorously  excludes  the  possibility  of  exact  law  in  history;  it 
simply  makes  the  presence  of  such  law  extremelj^  improbable. 
Given  a  system  of  elements  which  on  any  level  operates  conserv- 
atively and  with  perfect  order,  and  it  is  at  least  conceivable  that 
other  aspects  of  the  system  would  present  other  types  of  order ; 
so  a  clock  whose  pendulum  moves,  let  us  say,  in  an  invisible  and 
fundamental  sort  of  order,  may  show  on  its  dial  an  orderly 
movement  of  hands.  Any  finite  conservative  system  that  had  a 
fixed  regime  anywhere  in  its  hidden  interior  would  exhibit  an 
order  of  some  sort,  in  any  chosen  aspect.  And  although  we  do 
not  know  empirically  whether  or  not  our  universe  is  finite,  there 
is  a  chance  that  the  same  principle  may  be  true  of  it.  That  is, 
if  we  regard  the  total  conscious  life  of  the  universe  as  some  defi- 
nite function  of  the  total  physical  life  of  the  universe,  then  since 
there  are  assumed  to  be  definite  historical  laws  regarding  the 
physical  universe,  such  as  the  law  of  entropy  or  the  law  of  con- 
servation of  energj',  it  is  possible  that  there  may  be  historical 
laws  regarding  the  career  of  conscious  life  in  the  universe  at 
large.  But  even  in  such  case,  the  chances  that  conscious  life  on 
this  planet  would  exhibit  any  special  orderly  sequences  would  be 
most  remote, — irregular  fragment,  as  it  probably  is,  of  the  gen- 
eral conscious  life  of  the  whole. 

Still  more  remote,  a  thousand  times  more  remote,  would  be 
the  chance  that  historical  laws  for  this  human  episode  could  be 
stated  which  should  be  formally  identical  with  the  laws  of  phys- 
ical transformation  in  time.  Upon  what  a  verj'  remarkable  rela- 
tion, then,  between  the  various  groups  of  phenomena  evolving 
in  the  world  must  be  based  the  possibility  of  stating  a  law  of 
evolution  which  shall  hold  identically  for  all  of  them.  Certainly 
Herbert  Spencer  has  lightly  assumed  for  his  law  of  evolution 
responsibilities  which  no  simply  naturalistic  plan  of  existence 
would  impose  upon  him,  and  of  whose  extraordinary  implications 
he  was  apparently  unaware.  Historians  at  the  present  day,  ac- 
cordingly, deeply  influenced  by  naturalistic  presuppositions,  are 


1^0^]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  47 

consistently  disposed  to  class  Spencer's  philosophy  of  history 
with  Hegel's,  as  a  more  or  less  doctrinaire  construction.  And 
they  are,  so  far,  right.  Spencer's  assumption  that  the  several 
spheres  of  phenomena  which  participate  in  the  evolutionary  pro- 
cess are  united  in  their  careers  by  a  principle  of  thoroughgoing 
analogy  is  a  piece  of  pure  speculation  on  his  part;  and  it  marks 
his  spiritual  kinship  with  the  philosophers  of  Germany,  who 
announced  precisely  that  same  doctrine,  but  on  grounds  more 
consciously  avowed. 

Contemporar}^  sociology,  which  feels  bound  to  understand 
"social  progress,"  is  much  more,  given  to  stating  historical  laws 
than  contemporary  history  is.  And  the  laws  which  it  is  making 
for  are  not  of  the  phenomenalistic  type ;  they  are  given  a  certain 
air  of  necessity  by  being  expressed  in  terms  of  "social  forces." 
But  it  is  questionable  whether  there  is  any  such  thing  as  a 
permanently  valid  social  force.  Conscious  reflection  is  the  per- 
sistent solvent  of  habit  and  custom,  and  the  deliverer  from 
such  ' '  forces ' '  as  affect  consciousness :  whenever  human  nature 
knows  that  something  is  true  of  it,  that  thing  has  forthwith 
ceased  to  be  entirely  true.  Whatever  has  been  seen  has  been 
overcome;  the  moment  of  comprehension  is  the  moment  of 
release.  The  idea  that  we  may  know  the  future  by  the  past 
is  thus  neutralized  by  the  truth  that  knowledge  of  the  past 
is  the  very  thing  which  makes  the  future  incalculable.  Prince 
Schwarzenberg  was  accustomed  to  say,  "I  can  learn  nothing 
from  history."  In  brief,  such  historical  law  as  can  be  form- 
ulated by  human  thought  becomes  untrue  by  the  very  process  of 
its  formulation.  On  a  large  scale,  this  truth  becomes  itself  a 
kind  of  historical  law,  and  was  incorporated  as  such  by  Hegel  in 
his  philosophy  of  histoiy.  When  a  nation  becomes  aware  of  its 
own  genius,  Hegel  declared,  it  has  reached  the  day  of  its  destiny ; 
it  is  thenceforth  doomed  to  decline,  as  Greece  did  in  becoming 
conscious  of  the  subjectively  individual  element  of  freedom,  and 
Rome  in  becoming  conscious  of  the  soul  of  her  power.  But  un- 
less this  law  itself  becomes  untrue  by  being  comprehended,  it  is 
impossible  that  the  goal  of  history  should  contain  what  Hegel's 
central  dogma  maintains. — a  perfect  self-consciousness  in  the  uni- 
versal spirit. 


48       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophn.   [Vol.  2 

This  general  type  of  objection,  however,  only  makes  against 
the  absolute  validity  of  such  laws  as  the  sociologist  is  inclined  to 
formulate.  Unless  one  carries  it  farther,  to  the  point  of  saying 
that  it  is  the  destiny  of  conscious  life  to  become  aware  of  every 
law  which  has  been  true  of  it  at  any  time,  and  so  to  rise  step  by 
step  above  every  such  type  of  regular  process,  it  does  not  make 
against  the  possibility  that  some  entirely  valid  law  of  history 
may  exist,  M'hich  we  are  destined  never  to  realize.^  Or  if  the 
discovery  which  must  invalidate  that  ultimate  law  of  history 
were  deferred  to  infinite  time,  we  should  have  a  position  sim- 
ilar to  that  which  the  religious  consciousness  in  all  ages  has  been 
prone  to  take  up.  There  is  a  law,  a  plan  of  historical  existence, 
which  God  alone  knows,  and  Avhich  man  shall  never  see.  To  see 
the  law  would  be  equivalent  to  looking  upon  the  mind  of  God; 
and  no  man  seeth  God  at  any  time.  Indeed,  in  the  spirit  of  the 
type  of  piety  which  Hegel  had  especially  to  encounter,  it  is  a 
sacrilege  even  to  seek  to  know  this  plan  of  destiny.  The  true 
religious  attitude,  it  was  felt,  was  one  of  acquiescence  in  a  state  of 
ignorance.  In  this  respect  the  temper  of  piety  has  had  much  in 
common  with  the  anti-speculative  temper  of  nineteenth  century 
naturalism. 

It  is  indeed  time  to  lay  aside  this  bondage ;  and  to  claim  for 
the  human  spirit  the  right  to  enter,  at  least,  upon  a  know^ledge  of 
its  own  destiny.  The  prevalent  feelings  which  we  have  reviewed 
and  analyzed,  to  the  effect  that  there  are  no  laws  of  history,  or 
that  they  are  unascertainable  if  they  exist,  rest  on  more  or  less 
plausible  conjectures,  more  or  less  important  relative  truths, 
which  must  play  a  part  in  every  circumspect  effort  in  this  direc- 
tion. But  such  conjectures  close  no  door.  They  therefore  do  not 
need  to  be  explicitly  refuted.  The  important  thing  is  to  consider 
positively  what  type  of  law  it  may  be  within  our  reach  to  discover. 


1  That  we  are  destined  to  become  completely  self-knowing  is  still  a  pos- 
sible position,  and  would  amount  to  a  doctrine  of  ultimate  freedom  from 
all  historical  law.  In  quite  a  different  sense  from  that  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  freedom  of  iudetermination,  this  doctrine  would  hold  that  the  pos- 
sibility of  historical  law  is  limited  by  the  freedom  of  the  will. 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  49 


THE  LAW  OF  HISTORY  AS  A  LAW  OF  SPIRIT. 

Any  category  which  necessarily  applies  to  the  course  of  events 
in  the  world  as  a  whole  may  be  made  the  kernel  of  a  law  of  his- 
tory in  the  most  general  sense.  The  category  of  change  itself  is 
most  immediately  applicable.  If  all  historical  things  are  in  a 
flux  and  alwaj^s  in  a  flux,  we  have  at  least  one  feature  of  the 
world  of  events  which  can  be  counted  on,  and  which  might  ap- 
pear to  have  some  significance  in  connection  with  the  concept  of 
a  goal  of  history.  But  that  which  is  always  true,  although  it 
constitutes  the  background,  is  merely  the  frame  of  a  law  of  his- 
tory in  any  vital  sense.  Things  change, — that  is,  they  become 
what  they  were  not ;  and  for  us,  it  is  the  negation  that  is  impor- 
tant; we  require  to  know  the  direction  of  these  differences,  if 
they  are  any  other  than  a  senseless  shifting  of  kaleidoscopic  forms. 
We  require  a  concept  which  shall  stamp  universal  change  with 
character,  or  at  least  with  form,  and  we  may  think  to  find  such  a 
concept  in  that  of  rhythm,  of  rise  and  fall,  of  evolution  and  dis- 
solution, of  death  and  rebirth,  of  emanation  and  return, — des 
ewigen  Wiederkehrs.  Could  such  a  principle  be  established — 
and  it  has  lived  not  only  in  the  religious  dreams  and  prophetic 
fancies  of  men,  but  in  the  deliverances  of  their  mathematical 
physics,  and  speculative  biology — it  would  tend  to  throw  the 
thought  of  history  into  a  definite  conceptual  mould,  it  would 
harmonize  with  and  strengthen  our  sense  of  the  eternal,  perhaps 
of  the  eternal  Mind,  to  whom  time  is  nothing  and  tomorrow  is 
not  preferred  before  yesterday,  in  whose  presence  there  is  a 
veritable  ' '  conservation  of  values, ' '  for  the  whole  meaning  of  all 
that  has  gone  out  is  that  it  return  to  the  source  from  which  it 
came.  No  one  can  fail  to  recognize  in  this  thought  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  older  Orient,  which  paused  in  its  march  not  because 
of  its  fatalism,  but  because  its  history  was  in  the  eye  of  its  God 
a  history  of  temporal  indifference.  To  such  thought,  it  is  not  in 
progress  but  in  life  that  values  lie.  Change  which  simply  repeats 
itself,  though  it  be  with  ever  changing  elements,  is  play;  and  if 
it  be  held  in  some  spiritual  philosophy,  it  is  the  play  of  the  Spirit, 
the  play  of  God.     Life  is  in  play  like  a  system  of  fountains 


50       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.2 

which,  if  they  were  conscious,  might  delight  in  the  experience  of 
their  own  pulsing.  And  if  in  the  thought  of  Western  naturalism, 
whose  cosmic  picture  contains  this  same  element  of  return,  there 
is  retained  a  motive  of  thrust  and  earnest,  it  is  because  the  other 
half  of  reality  is  deliberately  excluded  from  view,  and  men  have 
determined  to  look  on  historical  things  with  the  eyes  of  men  and 
not  with  the  eye  of  the  Eternal.  If  men  are  to  have  an  ethical 
religion,  God  himself  must  have  a  temporal  interest,  a  preference 
for  that  which  as  yet  is  not  but  which  may  be,  or  is  to  be. 

To  the  "absolute  idealism,"  a  genuine  historical  direction 
was  found  compatible  with  eternal  identity  by  use  of  a  third 
concept,  the  concept  of  development,  of  the  change  from  the 
implicit  to  the  explicit,  of  the  world's  perpetually  "becoming 
what  it  eternally  is. ' '  For  Hegel,  the  law  of  history  is  completely 
contained  in  statements  of  what  the  spirit  is :  the  spirit  is  free- 
dom, the  spirit  is  self-consciousness, — history  is  therefore  the 
becoming  of  freedom,  the  becoming  of  self-consciousness.  The 
law  has  further  details,  because  the  becoming  of  the  spirit  must 
take  place  in  definite  stages,  whose  order  is  logically  fixed.  When, 
for  instance,  the  development  "of  spirit  has  reached  that  point  at 
which  cosmic  history  becomes  human  history — the  point,  that  is, 
at  which  Hegel  begins  to  enter  the  field  of  modern  sociology — 
we  find  that  freedom  must  bear  away  from  the  form  of  the  prim- 
itive family  to  the  form  of  the  State ;  and  that  within  the  State 
progress  has  its  stages,  which  are  explained  as  those  of  the  free- 
dom of  one,  the  freedom  of  some,  the  freedom  of  all.  ' '  The  East 
knew  that  One  is  free  (the  eternal  Being, — on  earth,  the  despot)  ; 
the  Greek  and  Roman  world  knew  that  some  are  free  (as  in 
aristocracy  or  democracy)  ;  and  the  Germanic  world  knows  that 
all  are  free. ' '  Deductive  history  can  go  farther :  it  can  deter- 
mine by  what  movements  of  expansion  and  decay  nations  must 
work  out  their  own  segments  of  the  idea  embodied  in  the  national 
genius,  attain  self-consciousness,  and  pass  off  the  scene.  What 
is  here  mapped  out  is  not  indeed  a  chronology,  but  still  a  rough 
temporal  order;  for  the  logical  goal  cannot  come  before  the  log- 
ical beginning,  and  the  movement  of  time  in  any  age  is  the  prep- 
aration of  the  spirit  of  that  age  for  knowledge  and  weariness  of 
itself,  and  emancipation  in  that  which  is  next  higher. 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  51 

Hegel  might  perhaps  accept  as  a  crude  and  limited  way  of 
expressing  his  meaning,  so  far  as  human  history  is  concerned, 
such  a  statement  as  the  follo\^dng:  Human  nature,  we  might 
say,  makes  first  of  all  for  independence  of  physical  nature ;  and 
then  it  proceeds  in  this  relative  independence  to  work  out  what 
is  in  itself.  If  man  is  indeed  a  political  animal,  we  shall  see  the 
state  appear;  and  if  the  essence  of  human  nature  is  indeed  free- 
dom, we  shall  see  political  forms  making  for  greater  and  greater 
freedom.  The  defects  of  this  statement  from  Hegel's  point  of 
view  might  be,  first,  in  the  somewhat  empirical  way  in  which  it 
takes  man's  position  with  regard  to  nature,  as  if  there  might  be 
a  contingency  that  man  should  not  get  foot-free  so  as  to  work 
out  his  destiny  without  interference  from  matter,  as  if  the  earth 
might  by  accident  have  contained  no  land  in  the  temperate  zone, 
etc.:  whereas  the  idealist  conviction  that  the  earth  is  the  Lord's, 
and  the  fulness  thereof,  seems  to  contain  provision  that  the  hin- 
drances to  the  development  of  spirit  shall  in  no  case  be  greater 
than  spirit  can  bear.  Another  defect  would  perhaps  be  found 
in  the  more  empirical  way  in  which  it  takes  man's  nature:  it  is 
regarded  as  a  question  of  fact  whether  man  is  or  is  not  a  political 
animal.  To  find  what  man  is,  it  is  customary  nowadays  to  look 
to  his  instincts :  and  to  find  what  his  instincts  are,  it  is  customary 
to  look  at  what  he  has  done.  If  he  has  been  gregarious,  it  is  said 
that  he  has  a  social  instinct;  if  he  has  eaten  and  wedded,  the 
instincts  of  hunger  and  sex  may  be  attributed  to  him ;  if  he  has 
built  cities,  he  has  the  political  instinct ;  and  if  he  has  made  gods, 
a  religious  instinct  is  evident.  Hegel  would  not  find  much  profit 
in  this  type  of  procedure,  for  the  reason  that  it  seems  to  lack 
power;  it  is  too  "metaphysical,"  in  Comte's  sense;  it  leaves 
things  about  where  they  are  found,  and  gives  no  light  on  the 
central  thrust  of  history.  But  it  is  the  essence  of  this  view  to 
question  the  presence  of  any  other  central  thrust  than  the  thrust 
of  these  fundamental  motives ;  with  the  possible  clarification,  that 
some  of  them  may  be  reduced  to  others.  As  far  as  freedom  is 
concerned,  Hegel's  critic  might  say,  that  word  simply  allows  the 
evasion  of  the  main  issue :  to  say  that  man  seeks  to  satisfy  his 
instincts  is  to  say,  at  the  same  time,  that  he  seeks  freedom  ;  but 
to  say  that  he  seeks  freedom  is  to  leave  it  quite  undetermined 


52       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

what  he  shall  be  free  for.  Given  the  instincts,  and  it  goes  with- 
out saying  that  human  society  will  take  those  forms  which  per- 
mit the  maximum  satisfaction,  so  far  as  physical  nature  allows — 
that  is  freedom;  but  there  is  nothing  in  human  nature  which 
makes  for  freedom  per  se,  apart  from  a  given  material.  And 
further,  granted  that  there  is  something  in  man  permanently 
trying  to  unfold,  to  express  itself,  to  get  free,  to  attain  satisfac- 
tion, we  cannot  construct  historical  laws  from  the  logic  of  the 
progressive  steps  in  that  attainment  without  regard  to  the  con- 
tinual dependence  of  human  history  upon  the  course  of  nature. 
Human  history  is  at  every  point  a  resultant :  men  do  not  first 
step  off  from  nature,  and  then  freely  evolve,  but  the  process  of 
emancipation  from  nature  is  a  continuous  one,  in  the  course  of 
which  human  nature  itself  changes,  so  that  the  face  of  history 
will  never  show  the  simple  development  of  an  original  analyz- 
able  germ.  In  brief,  to  interpret  the  law  of  history  as  a  law  of 
spirit  is  to  assume  much,  and  to  leave  much  more  unconsidered. 

I  so  far  sympathize  with  these  considerations  as  to  think  that 
Hegel  has  not  given  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  resistances  to 
the  development  of  the  spirit,  nor  of  the  materials  which  are 
taken  up  into  its  development.  To  the  absolute  idealist,  it  is 
true,  "Reason  is  Substance,  as  well  as  infinite  Power;  its  own 
infinite  Material  ...  as  also  the  infinite  Form — that  which 
sets  this  Material  in  motion."  Nature  is  thus  never  alien  to, 
but  only  the  Otherness  of  the  spirit ;  hence  Reason  can  never  be 
blocked  by  matter  at  the  point  of  mere  intention  or  desire  with- 
out fulfillment.  '  *  The  physical  has  no  truth  as  against  the  spir- 
itual ' ' ;  hence  the  destiny  of  the  spiritual  world  is  the  destiny  of 
the  world  iiberhaupt.  The  apparent  struggle  of  the  spirit  with 
Nature  is  an  illusion.  Spirit  is  "at  war  with  itself;  it  has  to 
overcome  itself,  as  its  most  formidable  obstacle ' ' :  hence,  though 
the  goal  be  hidden  from  its  own  vision,  and  though  its  ideal 
seem  to  be  in  danger  of  obliteration,  the  warfare  of  the  spirit  is 
in  perfect  security, — the  enemy  is  but  the  dumb  shadow  of  itself. 
These,  the  general  assurances  of  idealism,  it  is  the  business  of 
metaphysics  to  demonstrate,  whereas  the  philosophy  of  history 
has  only  to  show  their  substantiation  after  the  fact.  But  it  can- 
not be  said  that  even  Hegel's  metaphysics  has  met  all  the  condi- 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  53 

tions  for  upholding  these  doctrines,  without  making  some  appeal 
to  our  faith.  The  idealistic  movement  was  successful  in  showing 
in  many  ways  what  Nature  might  mean  to  Spirit ;  so  that  had 
Spirit  been  planfully  framing  itself  a  world  and  a  career  in 
time,  it  must  needs  have  "set  over  against  itself  a  divisible  non- 
ego,  as  a  limit,  a  resistance  to  its  infinite  activity."  There  is 
some  value  to  Spirit  even  in  a  (strictly  limited)  region  of 
chance,  risk,  disorder;  and  Nature  is  this  "Kealm  of  Chance." 
And  since  Nature  could  be  shown  so  significant  to  the  ego,  the 
argument  was  certainly  appealing  that  the  ego  does  in  truth 
constnict  Nature,  constitute  it  as  its  other  self.  But  all  these 
are  universal  aspects  of  Nature ;  whereas  it  is  really  not  the  uni- 
versal more  than  the  particular  aspect  of  Nature  that  is  critical 
for  history.  I  do  not  mean  simply  that  the  significance  of  resist- 
ance for  the  striver  is  dependent  as  much  on  the  amount  of  re- 
sistance as  on  the  general  condition  that  resistance  shall  exist; 
nor  that  the  measure  of  deferment  of  the  goal  in  time  and  the 
number  of  reversals  in  the  ideal  journey  are  quite  as  momentous 
for  the  special  principles  of  history  on  our  planet  as  the  general 
principles  that  the  goal  must  be  deferred,  and  the  journey  have 
some  backward  passages.  I  mean  rather  that  the  course  of  his- 
tory is  determined  as  much  by  conf.guration  as  it  is  by  law.  In- 
deed there  are  those,  like  Rickert  and  Stumpf  who  would  confine 
the  whole  field  and  interest  of  history  to  the  record  of  change  in 
configuration,  in  the  particular  alone.  There  is  a  real  tendency 
for  weights  to  slide  down  hill ;  but  it  depends  on  actual  tempera- 
tures and  the  actual  set  of  mountains  whether  any  given  glacier 
reaches  the  sea.  The  "law  of  the  heaviest,"  as  Carlyle  calls  it, 
creates  a  presumption  that  much  gold  will  find  its  way  close  to 
the  heart  of  the  earth,  and  that  justice  will  make  itself  felt  in 
human  affairs,  in  the  long  run.  But  it  is  the  circumstance  of 
continual  jarring  that  allows  the  iron  of  the  carwheel  to  assert 
its  nature  in  crj^stallization ;  and  it  is  the  presence  of  opportune 
facts  that  lets  justice  shoulder  one  length  farther  forward  in  the 
estimation  of  men.  Had  India  been  the  forum  for  the  appear- 
ance of  Hebrew  and  Christian  religion,  and  had  Greek  culture 
flourished  in  the  geographical  position  of  Spain,  the  dialectic  of 
the  spirit  would  have  suffered — at  least — postponement.    In  the 


5-i       University  of  California  Publications  in  Pliilosopliy.   L^o'-  2 

writing  of  history  there  is  always  some  exultation  that  at  this 
point  the  great  event  did  happen;  a  warming  of  the  heart  sim- 
ilar to  that  which  Kant  describes  in  the  discovery  of  beauty  in 
Nature, — as  if  by  some  design  the  configuration  of  inanimate 
things  had  been  set  into  harmony  with  our  powers  of  apprehen- 
sion. In  the  matter  of  the  resistances  to  the  development  of 
Spirit,  then,  there  are  problems  which  universal  considerations 
can  do  no  justice  to.  It  seems  indeed,  at  times,  that  Hegel  is 
content  to  ignore  the  particular  in  the  strength  of  his  belief  that 
freedom  is  the  most  powerful  thing  in  the  world;  for  he  allows 
no  promise  of  success  to  the  conscious  aims  of  individual  men — 
the  irrational  chances  of  the  world  he  seems  complacently  to  see 
thwarting  hopes,  crushing  passions,  and,  as  it  were,  spending 
themselves  in  bringing  to  naught  the  particular  purposes  of  men 
— while  (in  the  List  der  Vernunft)  the  universal  essence  of 
Spirit  rides  above  the  hurly-burly  and  the  risk,  furthered  by  all 
that  befalls  the  individual  for  weal  or  woe.  But  such  a  philos- 
ophy can  only  become  a  philosophy  of  human  history  by  leave  of 
certain  unacknowledged  presuppositions.  These  presuppositions 
are  taken  from  the  traditional  idea  of  Providence.  God's  will 
establishes  configurations  as  well  as  laws,  and  the  divine  drama 
itself  is  recorded,  not  deduced.  The  alleged  laws  of  history  re- 
duce themselves  to  laws  of  tendency;  and  we  wait  the  event  to 
show  whether  or  not  freedom  is  destined  to  accomplish  a  defini- 
tive and  self-conscious  triumph  among  men.  The  permanent 
and  essential  surprise  of  history  is  not  removed :  "  It  was  so, ' ' 
is  not  by  any  philosophy  thus  far  transmuted  into  ' '  It  must  have 
been  so." 

But  is  the  Hegelian  principle  sufficient  even  as  a  law  of  ten- 
dency ? 

II. 

THE  LAW  OF  HISTORY  AS  A  CAUSAL  LAW. 

To  Hegel  the  whole  of  history  is  the  history  of  freedom ;  and 
political  freedom  is  an  institutional  recognition  of  the  pervasive 
spiritual  mover.  If  we  compare  Hegel's  account  of  political  his- 
tory with,  let  us  say,  the  essays  on  the  "History  of  Freedom" 
in  the  papers  of  the  late  Lord  Acton,  or  with  Mackinnon  's  treatise 


1909]  Hocl-ing:  On  the  Law  of  History.  55 

on  the  "History  of  Modern  Liberty,"  we  are  struck  with  the 
immensely  greater  wealth  of  root  in  Hegel's  treatment.  Having 
sounded  the  nature  of  his  object,  Hegel  could  discern  it  under 
obscure  names  and  high  disguises :  Acton  perceives  that  Rome 
had  more  liberty  under  the  empire  than  under  the  republic; 
Hegel  is  able  to  perceive  that  despotism  is  freer  than  savagery, 
that  Rome  is  freer  than  Greece,  and  the  Ploly  Roman  Empire 
freer  than  Rome.  Freedom  being  the  final  cause  of  all  that  hap- 
pens in  the  world,  every  step  in  the  dialectic  of  history  will  be 
seen  as  a  step  toward  greater  freedom  if  we  can  discern  what  is 
at  the  heart  of  it.  But  for  Hegel  also,  it  is  through  the  material 
of  human  passions  that  the  divine  dialectic  is  realized.  If  our 
law  of  history  must  consist  in  declaring  the  necessary  success  of 
some  real  tendency,  then  it  may  be  a  phase  of  this  law  that  men 
become  freer ;  but  if  we  wish  our  law  to  state  the  accomplishment 
of  history  in  terms  of  the  actual  agencies  or  prime  movers  in  the 
process,  it  might  seem  more  to  the  point  to  say  that  they  become 
wealthier,  that  they  master  nature,  divide  their  labor,  and  extend 
the  arts  of  communication  in  continually  greater  degree.  This 
is  certainly  the  most  readily  verifiable  and  measurable  aspect  of 
the  historical  movement ;  and  it  is  moreover  that  aspect  which  is 
in  immediate  contact  with  the  ultimate  resistance  to  all  expan- 
sion, material  and  spiritual.  In  the  continuous  combat  with 
physical  history,  the  heavy  and  applicable  weapons,  those  which 
must  be  depended  upon  to  force  their  way  in  spite  of  nature's 
worst,  if  any  can,  are  the  physical,  political,  and  economic  pas- 
sions. These  way-making  engines  may  indeed  make  way  for 
liberty;  but  our  law  of  history  is  fundamental  only  when  stated 
in  terms  of  verae  causae,  and  of  such  of  these  valid  forces  as  have 
to  deal  with  the  strategic  obstacles  to  our  human  development. 
Add  to  this  the  conviction  that  the  peculiar  shapes  taken  by  our 
spiritual  possessions  in  the  course  of  history  can  be  understood 
as  functions  of  this  fundamental  movement, — and  we  have,  some- 
what generalized,  the  position  of  the  "economic  interpretation" 
of  history,  in  no  wise  opposed  to  Hegel's  law,  as  a  description 
of  phenomena,  but  presenting  the  description  in  language  per- 
haps more  cognate  to  these  phenomena. 

This  interpretation,  like  Buckle's  physical  theory,  has  passed 


56       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

into  disrepute  among  wise  sociologists  as  being  "one-sided."  It 
is  recognized  that  while  economics  has  slain  its  thousands  re- 
ligion has  slain  its  tens  of  thousands.  Many  therefore  prefer  to 
speak  impartially  of  the  "factors"  of  progress,  and  to  include 
the  economic  factors  in  a  list  with  "physical,  psychical,  and 
social"  factors  which  coordinately  conspire  to  make  history  what 
it  is.  But  perchance  these  factors  seem  coordinate,  as  things  now 
are,  mainly  because  in  times  of  peace  and  comparative  ease  all 
ends  tend  to  set  up  as  ends-in-themselves ;  the  various  heads  of 
progress,  relieved  from  discipline,  disperse  like  soldiers,  each  his 
o^\Ti  master  and  with  his  own  way.  Still,  at  the  edges  of  society, 
where  the  waters  of  wealth  run  shallow  and  grind  the  shore,  we 
can  see  the  economic  factor  conditioning  the  rise  of  the  rest.  And 
through  the  web  of  social  structure  we  can  see  the  Right  of  Na- 
tions continually  distilling  itself  over  into  might  and  capital,  as 
if  through  this  medium  were  to  be  won  the  next  vantage  in  the 
things  of  the  spirit.  Indeed  the  economic  factor  tends  to  assume 
the  role  which  Hegel  attributed  to  the  spirit  of  freedom :  for 
while  freedom,  no  longer  invisible,  becomes  an  end  consciously 
pursued  together  with  the  other  goods  of  the  soul, — wealth, 
judged  irrelevant  and  forgotten,  holds  a  secret  control  of  destiny. 
Beside  the  "List  der  Vernunft"  which  works  its  way  through 
the  passions  of  men,  we  must  recognize  the  List  der  Materie 
which  works  its  way  through  the  medium  of  the  ideals  of  men. 
Not  only  does  the  level  of  energy'  and  material  advantage 
limit  the  general  expansion  of  art,  reflection,  and  sympathy ; 
but  these  spiritual  values  in  turn  establish  themselves  in  the 
social  fabric  by  contributing  to  economic  and  political  potential. 
The  cycle  is  created  in  both  senses.  For  as  the  spirit  contrib- 
utes to  economic  and  political  energj-,  it  is  contributing  to  its 
own  further  progress.  At  the  front  of  our  economic  life  lie 
the  beginnings  of  new  virtues;  for  there  is  the  hotbed  of  the 
newer  sin.  And  as  this  sin  takes  its  shape  from  the  remoter 
and  more  impersonal  dealings  between  man  and  man,  so  must 
the  newer  virtue  lie  in  a  new  type  of  association,  a  more  virile 
and  distinterested  expression  of  loyalty.  As  from  the  beginning, 
the  economic  advance  marks  the  opportunity,  nay,  the  necessity, 
for  deeper  human  communication.     It  may  be  truly  said  that 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  57 

man  is  from  the  first  endowed  with  the  "social  instinct,"  as 
well  as  with  instincts  to  live  and  eat.  But  an  attraction  between 
one  mind  and  another  without  some  subject-matter  of  mutual 
interest  is  incomprehensible.  As  there  is  no  psychical  life  with- 
out sensation,  so  there  is  no  absolute  and  empty  "attraction" 
between  souls — still  less  between  men.  It  is  the  common  object 
that  reveals  them  to  each  other  in  the  order  of  history,  thus 
allowing  the  social  instinct  to  display  itself.  The  temporally 
presupposed  common  object  has  naturally  been  the  common  work 
in  all  the  material  provisions  for  living.  Further,  loyalty,  pure 
and  simple,  is  no  source  of  variety  and  change  in  experiences. 
Abstractly  it  is  a  fit  object  for  martyrdom ;  its  death  is  often 
more  glorious  than  its  life.  That  is  the  true  morality  which 
knows  how  to  root  itself  in  power,  rising  from  it,  and  returning 
to  it  as  unto  Casar,  the  things  that  are  Caesar's. 

Whatever  impulse,  and  go,  and  development  there  is  in 
the  moral  life,  seems  thus,  in  so  far  as  a  cursory  view  of  this 
cycle  of  forces  can  show,  to  be  due  historically  to  economic 
impulses;  or,  let  us  rather  say,  to  that  great  congeries  of  kindred 
impulses  which  the  economic  impulse  undertakes  to  measure  and 
represent.  If  among  the  forces  which  are  making  history,  there 
be  any  independent  variable  of  a  strictly  causal  and  temporal 
sort,  of  which  the  other  factors  may  be  understood  as  functions, 
we  might  well  look  for  it  in  this  quasi-material  power,  this  power 
which  extends  itself  gradually  over  nature,  sends  the  roots  of 
our  whole  existence  deeper  into  the  earth,  and  delivers  to  human 
life  its  necessary  increment  of  stuff,  as  well  as  imposing  upon 
this  stuff  its  first  transformations.  The  work  of  this  power  is 
essentially  independent  of,  because  irrelevant  to,  moral  considera- 
tions. More  mastery  over  things  is  neither  moral  nor  immoral 
per  se.  The  consent  of  the  spirit  need  not  be  asked  when  it  is  a 
pure  question  of  extending  economic  conquest,  because  the  con- 
cerns of  the  spirit  are  not  immediately  affected. 

The  economic  interpretation  of  history  has  gained  some  ill- 
odor  because  it  has  been  used  cynically,  as  if  morality  were  made 
by  interest,  and  the  like.  But  this  is  no  part  of  the  doctrine: 
indeed  the  economic  truth  about  history  is  the  handmaid  of  all 
genuine  idealism.     The  economic  level  is  a  line  of  force, — but 


58       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

force  is  not  intrinsically  vulgar  and  sordid.  It  implies  only 
that  progress  has  as  one  element  a  quantum,  a  rising  totality  of 
some  sort  of  living  substance,  of  spiritual  substance,  which  by 
this  fixed  force-level  is  dammed  off  from  mixing  meaninglessly 
with  the  plain. 

III. 
THE   LAW   OF   HISTORY   AS   A   FORMAL   LAW. 

But  while  the  fact  of  exploitation  involves  no  moral  questions, 
and  is  essentially  a  spiritual  feat,  putting  man  in  the  rightful 
position  of  master  over  things  less  than  human,  moral  and  other 
interests  do  indeed  stand  guard  over  the  method  of  exploitation. 
There  are  conditions  for  the  force-level  which  are  not  simply 
energetic,  but  regulative.  Of  these  conditions  we  can  most  easily 
ascertain  the  negative  aspect,  namely,  that  nothing  unfair,  un- 
just, oppressive,  may  be  done  or  established  in  the  zest  of  power- 
addition.  Power,  in  truth,  has  not  its  face-value  in  history, 
unless  in  adding  to  its  mass  certain  structural  relations  are  ob- 
served: hence  the  "economic"  force  envisages  this  set  of  condi- 
tions also.  Thus  it  has  come  about  that  human  progress,  just 
because  of  the  increase  of  material,  has  been  necessarily  charac- 
terized by  concomitant  formal  developments.  The  materials 
have  disposed  themselves  not  alone  according  to  certain  laws, 
but  according  to  increasing  sensitivity  within  these  laws.  The 
histoiy  of  institutions  will  thus  present  a  two-fold  aspect;  and 
the  law  of  history  must  give,  and  may  give,  consideration  to  the 
mode  in  which  structure  changes  as  well  as  to  the  change  in  the 
stuff.  Indeed,  when  we  speak  generally  of  the  "material"  with 
which  history,  and  so  historic  law,  has  to  deal,  it  is  such  formed- 
stuff,  and  never  the  raw  materials  alone  which  we  have  in  mind. 

This,  in  the  abstract,  is  no  unperceived  truth.  The  more 
famous  of  the  recent  formulae  for  progress  are  efforts  to  express 
its  direction  in  terms  of  some  structural  or  formal  change  of 
given  materials.  Of  these  attempts,  Herbert  Spencer's  descrip- 
tion of  evolution  in  terms  of  differentiation  and  integration  is 
the  prototype.  Neither  Spencer  nor  his  followers  were  probably 
aware  of  the  intimate  kinship  between  this  "differentiation" 
and  that  Hegelian  "negation,"  which  always  involved  a  plural- 
izing  and  splitting;   nor  between  this  "integration"  and  the 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Lmv  of  History.  59 

"synthesis"  of  the  dialectic.  The  correspondence  is  sufficient 
to  show  the  relative  place  that  a  formula  like  Spencer's  would 
hold  in  a  philosophy  of  history — how  partial  a  solution  of  the 
problem  of  history  any  such  formula  by  itself  can  offer.  A 
better  or  woi-se,  a  ground  for  preference,  a  significant  goal,  can- 
not be  found  in  differentiations  and  integrations  alone.  Neither 
morality  nor  desire  appears  interested  in  the  process  thus  de- 
scribed. Some  formulae  of  this  sort  may,  however,  have  the 
great  merit  of  being  true.  And  if  we  can  add  the  material,  the 
interest  may  begin  to  appear.  Morality  we  know  has  been  tra- 
ditionally associated  with  the  idea  of  the  perfection  of  some  sort 
of  integration, — the  solidarity  of  the  species,  the  "  conseiousne&s 
kind";  and  Durkheim-  has  shown,  I  think,  conclusively,  that 
it  is  quite  as  much  concerned  in  the  perfection  of  some  sort  of 
differentiation, — specialization,  individuation.  Morality  may  be 
interested,  then,  that  the  evolutionary  process  thus  described  go 
on.  But  can  any  other  interest  adequate  to  the  whole  phenom- 
enon be  alleged?  What  is  the  driving  power  of  this  tendency 
to  divide  and  unite  incessantly?  Are  there  any  materials  of 
human  passion  at  work  here?  Could  these  questions  be  an- 
swered, and  the  answers  incorporated  with  our  abstract  formulge 
for  progress  in  terms  of  increase  of  power  and  concomitant 
structural  change,  we  should  have  within  our  grasp,  I  believe, 
the  fragments  of  a  concrete  law  of  history. 

IV. 

THE  LAW  OF  HISTOEY  AS  A  LAW  OF  VALUE. 

To  say  that  men  strive  for  happiness  is  somewhat  ditTerent 
from  saying  that  the  passions  of  mankind  make  the  surface  of 
history.  Happiness  is  no  definite  object;  nor  is  it  attained  by 
the  attainment  of  any  definite  object.  Nevertheless,  it  is  what 
men  strive  for  at  the  same  time  that  they  are  striving  for  other 
things.  It  is  a  cause  having  the  same  order  of  reality  as  the 
several  desires  of  men,  and  yet  set  above  them  as  a  regulative 
idea  in  the  pursuit  of  the  several  satisfactions  of  desire.  Happi- 
ness is  a  general  condition  of  well-being  of  soul,  body,  and  estate, 


2  Division  du  travail  social. 


60       University  of  California  Puhlications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

which  men  know  of  more  by  the  direction  in  which  it  lies 
from  where  they  are  than  by  its  present  aspect.  It  signifies  to 
us,  however,  at  least  this,  that  all  of  a  man's  numerous  desires 
are  desires  of  the  same  person,  must  all  drink  from  the  same 
well  of  that  individual's  energies,  and  must  come  to  terms  with 
each  other  in  that  person's  ideas. 

The  various  desires  of  man  are,  in  fact,  more  centralized  than 
those  of  any  other  animal.  They  bear  on  each  other  more.  Each 
enjoyment  requires  the  whole  of  a  man's  attention,  no  matter 
how  trivial  it  may  be.  This  means  that  his  entire  stock  of  ideas 
is  more  or  less  involved  in  the  process  of  enjoyment.  I  empha- 
size the  fact  that  the  ideas  are  involved ;  for  they  are  commonly 
supposed  to  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  pleasures.  On  the 
contrary,  they  constitute  a  most  important  dimension  of  every 
pleasure,  in  such  wise  that  the  more  vigorous  and  extensive  a 
man's  ideas  are,  the  greater  will  be  each  one  of  his  pleasures. 
It  can  be  readily  seen,  if  this  statement  is  granted,  that  what- 
ever affects  the  vigor  of  any  idea  will  affect  all  of  the  pleasures 
in  that  mind,  and  not  one  of  them  alone;  since  the  idea  will  be 
more  or  less  operative  in  every  pleasure.  And  the  vigor  of  a 
man's  ideas,  in  turn,  is  deeply  affected  by  the  number  and  range 
of  his  pleasures.  The  necessity  for  choice  between  satisfaction 
now  or  later,  between  being  here  or  there  at  a  given  moment, 
makes  keen  the  ideas  of  duration  and  distance.  The  conscious- 
ness which  is  capable  of  many  satisfactions,  will  find  (other 
things  being  equal)  that  each  satisfaction  is  enhanced  by  the 
others,  and  in  proportion  to  their  number;  and  this  mutual  en- 
hancement may  occur  largely  through  the  medium  of  the  vivid 
ideas  which  the  conflict  and  satisfaction  of  desires  create.  The 
evidence  for  these  assertions  cannot  be  given  here.^  The  point 
to  be  made  is  this:  that  the  happiness  of  a  man,  or  let  us  say 
the  general  height  of  his  life,  will  have  two  distinct  measures: 
the  number  of  things  to  which  he  can  devote  him.self  with  in- 
terest, and  the  range  of  his  ideas,  especially  the  ideas  of  duration, 
distance,  personality,  and  the  "whole  of  things"  in  whatever 
shape  this  may  present  itself  to  him. 


3  See  Psychological  Bulletin  for  May,  1908,  for  the  theory  of  values  here 
sketched. 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  61 

This  doctrine  of  value  has  corollaries  of  immediate  bearing 
upon  the  law  of  history.  Suppose  that  an  early  man,  remember- 
ing the  pinch  of  hunger  in  a  past  season,  begins  for  the  first 
time  to  lay  up  stores  against  the  hard  time  of  year.  The  eco- 
nomic motive  is  at  work  in  stretching  his  idea  of  duration.  His 
personality  acquires  a  time-vista  which  it  never  had  before.  This 
stretching  of  the  idea  will,  if  we  are  right,  enliven  every  one  of 
that  individual's  satisfactions,  particularly  those  wherein  the 
idea  of  time  has  come  up.  This  is  an  uncontemplated  effect. 
And  it  is  for  that  man  an  unnoticed  effect;  he  is  simply  more 
alive  than  before,  and  however  alive  a  mind  is,  this  degree  of 
life  always  seems  the  normal  condition.  Nevertheless,  the  effect 
has  taken  place  as  an  incident  to  the  economic  advance.  And 
with  this  further  result :  that  the  resistance  to  slipping  back  into 
old  habits  of  drifting  will  be  greater  than  the  simple  inconven- 
ience of  going  hungry  would  account  for, — greater  by  this  un- 
earned increment  of  value.  The  same  is  true  of  the  development 
of  association ;  men  associate  for  defense  and  for  business  of 
various  sorts ;  they  stay  associated  for  these,  and  in  addition  for 
new-found  personal  reasons,  and,  still  further  in  addition,  for 
that  heightening  of  their  whole  scale  of  life  which  has  come,  in 
a  way  quite  beyond  their  power  of  explicit  cognizance,  through 
the  growth  of  their  ideas.  Their  idea  of  personality  has  been 
enlarged,  and  thereby  each  several  interest  multiplied  in  worth. 
So  with  each  higher  form  of  association.  "The  state  comes  into 
existence,"  said  Aristotle,  "originating  in  the  bare  needs  of  life, 
and  continuing  in  existence  for  the  sake  of  a  good  life."  It  is 
this  additional  resistance  to  going  back  which  is  the  security  of 
human  progress,  and  which  marks  the  historical  relation  between 
economic  and  moral  forces.  For  while  early  man  is  totally  un- 
able to  construe  to  himself  the  nature  of  this  new  subjective 
resistance  to  the  diminishing  of  his  ideas,  expressing  it  in  his 
religious  fantasy  by  all  manner  of  weird  objective  symbols,  this 
resistance  is,  in  fact,  the  incipient  conscience  of  mankind.  Con- 
science, we  may  say,  is  an  organic  resistance  to  the  diminution  of 
the  amount  of  acquired  life. 

The  bearing  of  the  formula  of  differentiation  and  integration 
(as  of  those  other  more    special    formulas,   Bagehot's  custom 


62       JJniversitxj  of  California  PuMications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

and  the  dissolution  of  custom,  Tarde's  imitation  and  initiation) 
upon  human  interest  may  now  become  apparent.  The  economic 
motive  is  admittedly  the  pioneer  in  promoting  specialization  and 
efficient  connection  among  human  beings.  But  this  means  that 
every  human  being  is  called  upon  to  differentiate  and  integrate 
his  thought  of  his  world,  in  order  to  hold  his  special  place  in 
it,  to  enlarge  to  the  limit  of  his  perspective  the  number  of  his 
interests  and  the  scope  of  his  ideas.  By  a  more  or  less  forcibly 
imposed  enlargement  of  both  dimensions  of  his  happiness,  the 
quantum  of  his  spiritual  substance  is  enlarged ;  and  this  is  done 
for  each  member  of  the  social  order  according  to  his  capacity, 
without  competition,  since  it  is  the  same  further  differentiated 
and  integrated  world  which  is  the  necessary  object  of  each  such 
mind.  We  may  therefore  say  that  the  law  of  history,  in  so  far 
as  it  deals  with  the  material  of  human  passions,  is  this:  the  con- 
tinuous increase  of  value  or  of  the  quantity  of  spiritual  exist- 
ence. To  the  process  as  thus  stated  there  is  no  limit.  The  eco- 
nomic enlargement  never  achieves  its  last  conquest.  This  law  I 
would  set  in  direct  contrast  with  the  law  of  the  "conservation 
of  value, ' '  proposed  by  Professor  Hoffding. 

The  apparently  formal  law  of  Spencer  thus  turns  out  to 
evolve  a  law  of  the  very  substance  of  value.  But  what  is  the 
relation  of  this  law  to  such  interpretations  of  history  as  we  find 
in  Fichte  and  Hegel?  The  relation  is  direct  and  intimate.  The 
idealistic  reading  of  this  process  does  not  follow  the  order  of 
time,  but  sees  the  motive  power  of  history  in  that  which  turns 
out  to  be,  rather  than  in  that  which  is  active  in  the  beginning. 
The  enlargement  of  the  economic  horizon  means  at  the  same  time 
the  retreat  of  the  limiting  non-ego,  and  the  unending  increase 
of  its  antagonism  to  the  ego.  But  this  is  indeed  as  it  should 
be.  For  if  the  "ego  sets  over  against  itself  a  divisible  non-ego", 
the  measure  of  the  ego  is  none  other  than  the  measure  of  the 
non-ego  which  is  over  against  it.  The  thesis  itself,  however,  con- 
tains no  principle  of  measure,  and  nothing  explains  why  at  any 
time  there  should  be  just  so  much  life,  and  no  more — nothing 
except  the  supposition  that  the  ego  does  in  fact,  in  its  temporal 
career,  run  through  the  whole  infinite  scale  of  measure.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  time,  we  should  say  that  the  ego  is  contin- 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Lmv  of  History.  63 

ually  positing  its  non-ego ;  the  deed  is  an  infinite  one,  and  in 
a  temporal  order  eternally  unfinished.  Ideally,  also,  the  law 
of  history  may  be  read  as  an  increase  of  freedom.  The  only 
definitive  freedom  of  the  soul  is  to  be  infinite ;  and  this  goal  is 
never  accomplished.  Freedom,  indeed,  is  too  attributive  a  term 
to  tell  the  whole  truth  as  to  the  substance  of  progress.  What 
grows,  through  history,  is  reality  itself.  And  freedom  grows, 
derivatively,  because  to  be  more  real  is  to  be  more  free.  The 
chief  objection  to  Hegel's  law,  however,  is  in  the  conception  of 
the  unfolding  germ  which,  present  in  the  beginning,  acts  as  with 
a  temporal  desire  for  what  is  beyond  it  in  point  of  time ;  free- 
dom is  rather  the  face  of  Deity,  whom  the  process  of  history 
gradually  reveals.  The  being  into  which  we  grow  is  a  communi- 
cated being,  our  enlargement  is  the  gift  of  God. 

Liberty  in  the  narrower  sense,  however,  is  not  merely  a  goal 
of  history,  and  not  altogether  that;  for  here  the  process  is  one 
of  alternate  liberty  and  bondage.  Politically,  liberty  is  a  status, 
which  appears  as  a  stage  in  an  alternating  process.  The  political 
force  which  alternately  constrains  men  (and  which  we  have  in- 
cluded with  the  ''economic  motive"  in  the  general  category  of 
power)  is  set  from  time  to  time  by  the  strong  man,  the  authority, 
as  the  mark  is  set  to  which  when  they  have  grown  they  shall 
again  be  free.  Liberty  is  the  state  of  having  digested  a  meal, 
of  having  awakened  from  sleep.  Men  must  sleep  yet  again,  and 
again.  "While  the  Germanic  peoples  were  living  in  external  con- 
tact with  Rome,  between  the  times  of  Tacitus  and  the  invasions 
they  gradually  adopted  Roman  titles  of  dignity,  aped  the  habits 
of  authority,  and  let  their  ancient  liberal  customs  of  election 
and  assembly  fall  into  desuetude.  Were  they  growing  in  free- 
dom ?  or  were  they  entering  into  the  shadow  of  the  great  bondage 
from  which  they  were  to  emerge  transformed  ?  They  were,  even 
then,  enlarging  their  souls,  and  in  this  sense  were  becoming  more 
free;  but  specifically  they  were  entering  into  the  antithesis  of 
freedom.  Could  we  regard  freedom  in  the  wider  sense  as  a 
synthesis  of  this  more  specific  freedom  and  its  opposite,  then 
we  might  say  with  truth  that  history  presents  the  recurrent  dia- 
lectic of  freedom,  as  the  shape  of  the  process  through  which  the 
enhancement  of  values  takes  place. 


64       University  of  California  Publications  in  Philosophy.   [Vol.  2 

The  law  of  history,  as  we  now  see  it,  is  a  law  of  the  per- 
sistent increase  of  value,  through  the  thrust  of  power  and  the 
regaining  of  liberty.  It  is  true  that  the  process  is  of  the  nature 
of  a  dialectic;  it  is  also  true  that  it  is  an  advance  in  "differen- 
tiation and  integration."  The  motive  force  of  the  process,  re- 
garded temporally,  is  indeed  the  passion  for  power  of  all  sorts ; 
whereas,  regarded  ideally,  it  is  the  passion  of  the  soul  for  in- 
finitude, for  the  fulness  of  its  own  being. 

But  looking  at  the  process  still  from  the  strictly  temporal 
and  causal  point  of  view,  is  it  true  that  all  the  original  work 
of  exploring,  annexing,  and  difference-making  is  done  by  the 
love  of  power  in  the  last  analysis;  while  the  love  of  men,  the 
love  of  God,  and  the  love  of  general  liberty  do  but  accompany 
and  follow,  to  regulate  the  process  and  assimilate  its  fruits? 
Can  these  latter  motives,  which  united  we  may  call,  with  Hegel, 
the  love  of  freedom,  create  no  original  differences  in  history? 
They  can,  and  do.  The  love  of  freedom,  especially  as  fostered 
by  religion,  takes  the  form,  first  of  all,  of  a  desire  for  release 
from  the  inconveniences  of  the  world  as  it  is;  and  since  these 
inconveniences  are  thoroughgoing,  it  may  become  a  fairly  pure 
and  wholesale  passion  for  retreat :  in  such  forms  it  does  no  work. 
But  if  it  takes  the  form,  not  simply  of  repudiating  what  is, 
but  of  imagining  a  better,  it  is  beginning  to  be  creative ;  and 
the  essential  historical  office  of  religion  is  to  encourage  and 
make  valid  these  deepest,  timidest,  most  original  outputs  of  dif- 
ference within  the  human  will.  Religion  causes  men  to  believe, 
not  so  much  in  their  dreams  as  in  the  dreaming  process.  It 
reaches  what  is  most  subjective  in  men  and  makes  it  objectively 
valid  by  declaring  the  absolute  worth  of  human  creativeness.  It 
protects  man,  the  seer  of  visions.  In  so  doing,  it  sustains  many 
sentiments  and  fancies  which  are  obviously  without  utility  to 
the  state,  if  not  detrimental;  but  in  the  vast  cloud  of  worthless 
dreams  there  is  some  dreaming  w^hich  can  make  good,  and  this 
is  the  most  precious  product  which  the  human  spirit  deposits. 
Making  good  means,  to  be  sure,  taking  shape  as  a  power;  the 
dream  remains  unhistorical  until  it  attracts  visible  forces  to 
itself.  And  since  men  have  often  clung  more  passionately  to 
their  visions  than  to  their  material  realities,  the  death  of  loy- 


1909]  Hocking:  On  the  Law  of  History.  65 

alty  has  been  a  necessary  feature  of  the  historical  ordeal,  the 
judgment  of  God.  Loyalty  has  taken  its  choice  between  two 
things,  both  of  which  were  necessary;  it  has  chosen  the  better 
part,  and  it  cheerfully  takes  the  consequences,  but  it  is  not  yet 
a  history-making  factor.  But  chiefly  through  its  death  it  at- 
tracts that  power  to  itself  which  establishes  its  place  in  history; 
and  it  must  be  noticed  that  the  power  thus  commanded  is  not 
simply  the  quantum  of  force  otherwise  existing  in  the  world — 
but  because  the  world  has  suddenly  become  more  worth  while 
on  account  of  the  militant  presence  of  this  idea  in  it,  there  is 
a  genuine  creation  of  power,  and  this  is  indeed  the  chief  of  all 
contributions  to  human  value. 

We  may  finally  state  our  law  of  history  thus :  Value  is  per- 
sistently increased  (1)  through  the  original  extension  of  power 
and  the  consequent  regaining  of  liberty;  and  (2)  through  the 
original  extension  of  liberty  and  the  consequent  accession  of 
power.  In  this  bifactorial  growth,  neither  variable  can  be  re- 
garded as  absolutely  prior  in  time,  nor  as  absolutely  independ- 
ent of  the  other  in  time.  Which  is  more  fundamentally  real 
may  be  left  for  metaphysics  to  determine. 

This  is  not  a  satisfactory  law.  No  law  of  indefinite  quan- 
titative increase  can  be  satisfactory.  We  must  know  more  of 
the  nature  of  the  goal  to  which  it  tends.  Further,  it  is  but  a 
law  of  tendency,  and,  like  all  such  laws,  calls  upon  our  faith 
in  the  configuration  of  things  for  its  actuality:  it  is  a  law  of 
history  only  by  the  grace  of  God.  And  finally,  it  is  not  able  to 
explain  the  concrete  forms  which  history  assumes.  It  is  a  law 
of  values,  and  should  give  some  insight  into  the  sense  of  advance 
from  savagery  to  statedom  through  family  and  village  com- 
munities, but  it  cannot  show  the  necessity  of  the  family  or  the 
village  or  the  state.  These  shapes  stand  in  simple  vivid  natural- 
ness, the  gift  of  nature,  the  despair  of  our  philosophy.  Let  us 
not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  have  fathomed  even  their  "essence." 
The  value  of  such  an  attempt  as  this  may  be  to  show  how  com- 
patible, with  the  proper  key,  are  the  thoughts  of  the  greater 
thinkers ;  and  to  unite  our  hopes  of  further  understanding  upon 
that  enlightened  love  of  material  Nature  which,  as  I  repeat,  is 
the  prerogative  of  true  idealism. 


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